Business Ethics and

Corporate Social
Responsilbilty

Dr. Nayyra Zeb

 Ethics Meaning
“the principles of
conduct governing
an individual or a
group”
Ethics Meaning
Personal Ethics
Accounting Ethics
 More important
meaning of Ethics
“The study of
Morality”
Although ethics deals
with morality, it is not
quite same as morality
 Ethics is a kind of
investigation and
includes both the
activity of
investigating as well
as results of that
investigation
Whereas Morality is the
subject matter that ethics
investigates.
Morality vs. Ethics
Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong”
conduct. While they are sometimes used
interchangeably, they are different: ethics refer
to rules provided by an external source, e.g.,
codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in
religions. Morals refer to an individual’s own
principles regarding right and wrong
Morality Meaning
The standards that an
individual or a group has
about what is right and
wrong or good and bad
Morality Meaning
principles concerning
the distinction between
right and wrong or
good and bad behavior
Moral vs. Non Moral
Standards
Moral Standards
involve the rules people have about the
kinds of actions they believe are morally
right and wrong, as well as the values they
place on the kinds of objects they believe
are morally good and morally bad
 Moral Standards
According to some scholars, moral standards are the sum
of combined norms and values. In other words, norms plus
values equal moral standards. On the one hand, norms are
understood as general rules about our actions or
behaviors. For example, we may say “We are always under
the obligation to fulfill our promises” or “It is always
believed that killing innocent people is absolutely wrong”.
On the other hand, values are understood as permanent
beliefs or statements about what is good and desirable or
not. For example, we may say “Honesty is good” or
“Injustice is bad”.
Where do Moral standards
come from?
 Non Moral
Standards(Conventional
standards)
refer to rules that are unrelated to moral or
ethical considerations. Basic examples of
non-moral standards include rules of
etiquette, rules in games, and various house
rules.
 Non moral standards
As we can see, non-moral standards are
matters of taste or preference. Hence,
compliance of these types of standards does
not make one a moral person. Violation of
said standards also does not pose any
threat to human well-being.
 Non moral standrds
Finally, as a way of distinguishing moral
standards from non-moral ones, if a moral
standard says “Do not harm innocent
people” or “Don’t steal”, a non-moral
standard says “Don’t text while driving” or
“Don’t talk while the mouth is full”.
 Differentiate b/w moral & non
moral standards
Group one Group two
• Don’t harm other people • Don’t eat chew gum in
• Don’t lie class
• Don’t steal • Don’t wear sox that don’t
match
 Five characteristics of Moral
standards
According to many scholars, moral standards have the following
characteristics:
 Moral standards deal with matters that we think can seriously injure
or benefit human being, such as murder, fraud, law breaking etc.
 Moral standards are not established or changed by the decisions of
authoritative individuals or bodies. For sure, we don’t need a law to
back up our moral belief that killing innocent people is absolutely
wrong;
 Moral standards are overriding, that is, they take preference over
other standards especially of self-interest.
 Moral standards are felt to be universal.
 Moral standards are associated with special emotions (such as guilt
and shame) and vocabulary (such as right, wrong, good, and bad).
What, then, is Ethics?
Enough for
today. . .
Summary